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Inactive window scrolling:

With windows 10 there is a new feature called inactive window scrolling, which means if your mouse hovers over a window you can scroll on it, without it needing to be the active window.

Problem:

This feature is pretty great, but it does not work with Microsoft excel. If excel has the focus, you scroll in excel wherever your mouse is.
So most of the time when I am working with excel and browsing in the web at the same time I almost always accidentally scroll my excel table away.

Is there some kind of setting or feature or workaround to fix the problem? Thanks in advance

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Florian K
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2 Answers2

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It appears as though Microsoft addressed this issue in the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17040 for PC

We fixed an issue where inactive window scrolling wouldn’t work if Excel 2016 was in focus.

For those of us not subscribed to Insider Preview Builds, we must wait until Microsoft deems this ready for release. At the time of the original response, the public release is Version 1709.

Public release is now Version 1803, and this appears to be fixed!

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Enigmadan
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    1709 has already been released and the build you referenced is higher then the 1709 build which means this issue will be addressed in RS4 or 1803. – Ramhound Dec 28 '17 at 04:24
  • @Ramhound when looking at my System Information if got the version number "**10.0.16299 Build 16299**", that means it is the version 1709. When is the version 1803 supposed to be released? – Florian K Mar 20 '18 at 12:13
  • 17040 is RS4 Insider Preview build. 1803 will be released in April. – Ramhound Mar 20 '18 at 12:32
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    It finally works!! – Florian K Jul 04 '18 at 12:56
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    Broken again in version 1808... – Amos M. Carpenter Jun 24 '19 at 01:43
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    Here I am searching out for this (very unproductive) issue because I'm experiencing it today on Windows 1903 and uuuuum, Excel version ?? (cant see how to find the version but it should be updated to today's version) – Lamar Latrell Jul 24 '19 at 23:34
  • In Excel 2302 it is fixed. For browser + excel it works. But still if you have **two Excel instances** open only the active one is scrolling, independant of the cursor posititon... – Manuel Jul 19 '23 at 12:47
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For all other versions a great workaround is the Wizmouse app with Bring scrolling windows to foreground.

From their website:

WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel.

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Alec Stanescu
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    Welcome to Super User! Please read [How do I recommend software](https://meta.superuser.com/questions/5329/how-do-i-recommend-software-in-my-answers/5330#5330) for some tips as to how you should go about recommending software. You should provide at least a link, some additional information about the software itself, and how it can be used to solve the problem in the question. – DavidPostill Jul 08 '18 at 08:28